ICICI Bank Launches Virtual Mobile Appathon with IBM Cloud

ICICI Bank launched a virtual mobile app development challenge hosted on the IBM Cloud platform. Its India’s largest mobile app development initiative by a bank. Christened ‘ICICI Appathon’, the programme aims to attract developers, technology companies, startups, technopreneurs and students to create the next generation of banking applications on mobile.

Hosted on the IBM Bluemix cloud based platform, 'ICICI Appathon' will offer a diverse set of over 50 APIs from ICICI Bank and its group companies namely ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and ICICI Securities. As a first, payment APIs from 'Visa' and the 'Unified Payment Interface' API from NPCI will also be available for the app development challenge. Using these APIs, participants will have to create innovative working prototypes of mobile applications that provides a superior customer experience.

Three 'ICICI Appathon' champions will be selected by a jury of eminent leaders from the BFSI segment and startups. All participants will be judged on five criteria that include uniqueness, functionality, business potential, user experience and scalability.

The top three winners will win prizes from a pool of over INR 20 lakh along with a potential engagement opportunity with ICICI Bank. They will also be given a chance to be mentored by the event partners. Additionally, winners of the 'ICICI Appathon', who apply to the '10,000 Startups' of NASSCOM will get a fast tracked entry into it. Moreover, two members of the winning team shall also have access to the network and coworking community of 91springboard (a co-working community of freelancers, startups and established small to large businesses) across India.


Cloud has reached the tipping point as a platform for business, led by developers

IBM InterConnect 2016 is well underway, brimming with developers, entrepreneurs, startups, and a roster of truly revolutionary technologists, speakers and presenters! People from all occupations have gathered here and are focused on the future. Whether it’s the future of their craft or company, or the future of the Cloud, they can all agree that Cloud’s at a tipping point.

Right now, only 1% of developer teams today are utilizing cognitive in their apps. According to the IDC, that number will rise to over 50% by 2018, providing U.S. enterprises $60+ billion in annual savings by 2020! That’s a staggering change in the business landscape in such a short period, but not expected when you see the transformations and disruptions several industries are facing today. This is especially true when you consider the changes in Cloud.

80% of CxOs are thinking about, or experimenting with, different business models and 85% of hybrid leaders report that hybrid cloud is accelerating digital transformation in their organization. Cloud, mobile, and social are revolutionizing the way people deal with data, the way people interact with customers, and the way people go to market with their products. As a result, industries and their leaders realize we’re on the brink of a massive change in HOW we deal with this data.

That’s what InterConnect 2016 is all about, showcasing the latest and greatest in our mission to gather the best offerings and partnerships for you: The developers, startups, and entrepreneurs innovating tomorrow on the Cloud today! Here are just a couple examples of what startups in the IBM Developer Ecosystem are creating:

  • Alpha Modus is challenging the status quo, delivering alpha directly to end-users through a marketplace of investment technologies they call ‘mods.’
  • JKool uses a real-time operational intelligence SaaS with streaming log analytics, metrics and transactions so developers (and folks in DevOps alike) can observe Java transactions as they occur together with a consolidated visualization of all logs and metrics on a single pane of glass in real-time.

Stay tuned for more breaking news and partnerships that will continue IBM’s trend of shaping the future of Cloud developmental success.